I've been taking the Times Empire Zone and Ben Smith to task today for being anti-Statenite.

Link Texthttp://empirezone.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/02/20/its-election-day/#comments

Link Texthttp://www.r8ny.com/blog/ben_smith/turning_out_in_the_40th.html#comment-369392

I've been involved to a limited degree with Manny Innamorato's special election campaign to fill Andrew Lanza's usually empty Southshore/Mid-Island council seat (Marchi's successor and Titone's State Senate opponent had the worst attendance in the Council)against State Assemblyman Vincent Ignizio, a Vito protege.

Manny, the head of IT for the City of Yonkers (Talk about bad commutes), held a fundraiser last night on the Island. Steve, Janele and most Staten Island Democratic officeholders, activists and operatives were there.

Daniel is right, that a win here would help Democrats win other races in the forgotten borough (Although I appreciate Daniel not forgetting us). Ignizio, who ran unopposed for his Assembly spot, is being groomed to eventually succeed Fossella. Iggy defeated Manny for the Assembly seat in 04. Beating him in the council race will dampen his ambition and possibly give a Southshore Democrat the courage to oppose him when he runs for reelection to Albany.

The Council district is slightly more Democratic than that of the all Republican dominated Southshore Assembly because it includes New Springville which is mixed (New Springville became slightly less Democratic two days after election day when my wife and myself moved to the Northshore.)Manny should do better than he did against Iggy for City Hall than for Albany just based on that.  read more »

Yvette Clarke's City Council seat will be vacant as soon as she is sworn in January 1st as the new Congress Critter from NY-11. The race to replace her will be a very hotly contested one with probably a huge number of candidates getting in on the game. At last night's Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats meeting last night (where more factional fighting provided the same kind of entertainmen as a bombing stand up comic) two candidates for the 40th City Council spoke. Both came off well. These are my impressions of them.

Jesse Hamilton:

Jesse Hamilton is fresh from a great win against the corrupt Brooklyn machine when his grassroots campaign beat the machine by about 2:1. For those of us who want to see the end to Clarence Norman/Vito Lopez corruption in Brooklyn, Hamilton's win was sweet. When running for district leader he says he was endorsed by both David Yassky and Chris Owens, though I should note there was also controversy over his first endorsing, then un-endorsing Yassky then campaigning for Chris.

Hamilton came off endearing but a bit unpolished, but this fits his description of his self as being a "community activist, not a politician." He now adds district leader to his resume of serving on Community Board 8 and being elected to the school board in the Crown Heights area where he served as president. During his stint on school board he claims that district's preformance improved by 12%. He attributes this to a better connection between the school board and ALL segments of the district, reaching out to every school and setting up awards for students to encourage better performance. By better engaging parents the school board better served the students.  read more »

The New York State Board of Elections website has got to be one of the worst government sites in the nation. Can you believe these people don't use HTML for their updates? No. They publish their updates in PDF files.

I would love to know who is the dishonest web developer/consultant or IT Director who is squandering my tax money on that piece of electronic crapulence. In terms of usability that site sucks at all levels. Who the hell is earning $100K + a year for doing nothing but putting up PDF files of some of the most important information all New York voters ought to have readily available.

Anyhow...

More for my benefit that yours I will be publishing all throughout the weekend the lists of candidates we will be faced with come Tuesday.

The primary source is that awful site, but I would like to also give a hat-tip to Democratic Underground's effort in putting together a voter's guide for the state.

Steve Harrison, the Democrat running against Vito Fossella, the corrupt buddy of Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, is calling for increased funding for building schools. Anyone who has a kid in NYC schools knows that more schools are critical for our children's education.

From the Staten Island Advance:

Harrison calls on U.S. to increase spending on school construction

Dem congressional hopeful says more funds are needed to reduce size of classes

Thursday, October 05, 2006
By GLENN NYBACK
ADVANCE STAFF WRITER

The federal government ought to spend more money on building schools in order to reduce class sizes and implement education initiatives outlined in the No Child Left Behind Act, Democratic congressional candidate Stephen Harrison said yesterday.

Flanked by representatives of the United Federation of Teachers and Democratic elected officials, Harrison said too many schools on Staten Island are overcrowded, creating poor learning environments for children forced to compete for attention from their teachers...

Fossella, Harrison said, "doesn't pass the test" and received a failing grade from the National Education Association based on his performance in enhancing education...  read more »